New Day's Dawn
by secret letters
Summary: Given some thorough, rational thought, it had always been the only possible outcome, really. Loki meant chaos and war and as far as Tony was concerned, the Avengers had been little different lately – the end was always bloody and messy. - Tony Stark, Loki. Also, there is death.


**New Day's Dawn (Another Star Has Fallen)**

Unable to take a breath as deep as he needed, Tony squeezed his eyes shut in pain and clenched his jaw to avoid whimpering. A quick assessment of injuries processed somewhere in the auto-piloted part of his brain supplied at least six broken ribs, if his severely obstructed lungs where anything to go by. There wasn't even a point in starting on the various bruises all over the rest of his body where his suit had been smashed and parts of it pressed inwards. Probably a concussion, too, his brain added as he attempted to sit up from his lying position among the remains of what once had been a mostly untouched tract of land covered by forest. Once upon a time, this must have been Canada.

His head fell back to the ground and Tony brought his arms up to it with some effort, instead. He knew it wouldn't help him to breathe easier that much, but he felt the urge to take off his helmet to escape the dull, darkened inside of it after the HUD had said adieu for good. He pulled it off and tossed it to the side, looking around for orientation.

It was a sight of utter destruction. Fires were raging here and there, rubble and corpses of the few who had been left in the final battle scattered all around. Feeling sick from the display of death, Tony averted his eyes and became aware of the first signs of dawn ghosting over the dark blue sky, slowly erasing the visibility of the stars. There were fewer stars now than before the war had started. The God of Chaos had done his share of blowing up planets and suns.

Loki.

Yes, there was that.

Loki had been the one to declare this last war, the ultimate conclusion, the resolution of everything. He had thrown himself and his allies into it with all his divine and unrelenting fury and madness, and the Avengers and every other defender of realms had answered his call for combat. Worlds had collided, populations had fallen, and races had been eradicated.

Given some thorough, rational thought, it had always been the only possible outcome, really. Whatever SHIELD and his teammates, whatever any other remotely important person on the surface of earth had pretended to predict, they must have known that this, right here, was what they had always been headed toward. Loki meant chaos and war and as far as Tony was concerned, the Avengers had been little different lately – the end was always bloody and messy. They had all been at the end of their resources, emotionally and physically, and the only way they could gain more physical power had been to abandon what was left of their virtue or humanity or whatever else qualified them as the 'good' guys. Then again, there hadn't been much left to defend anyway, so maybe they had bothered just a bit less about collateral damage in the end. The war had lasted years, but felt like decades. Tony hadn't bothered keeping track anymore, at some point. Time had long stopped being measured in days, because there had been no such thing as rest whether it was night or day. There had only been battle, blood, licking wounds, battle, casualties, battle. And in between of it all, Tony Stark had somehow found himself trying to understand the enemy. Call him out of his mind to even waste his time on thoughts like that, but on the other hand, what the hell? What had he had to lose? There had to be a reason behind all the raging madness of those green, restless eyes, he had told himself.

Maybe he had already lost enough of his sanity at the point when he began obsessively searching for another way to end the war. A way that didn't require them to kill Loki. What had he hoped for? Reconciliation? Agreement? Surrender? He had been so foolish – he knew that now. But back then…he had been so desperate to get through to Loki. To reach even the tiniest bit of pity or something resembling it in the god's heart. He had convinced himself that there had to be something, _something_, in Loki that wished for the fighting to stop. He couldn't be through and through evil, Tony had been sure, because he was angry, and where there was anger there had to be feelings that had been hurt or neglected or disappointed, so that he lashed out one day… Tony had sought him out, deliberately chosen confrontation on the battle field, tried to convince him, to make him believe he could stop this, and sometimes he had even been crazy enough to think that some of it had come through to the god.

Now, however…now. It was over. It was all over, and he had achieved nothing. What had been the point of his impossible quest? Earth was lost to them now, with the Avengers fallen. He knew, incredible as it sounded, that he was the last one left. He had seen Steve and Natasha die in combat, Clint sacrifice himself in vain to protect them, Thor and Bruce being torn to shreds by a creature from the underworld of one of the Nine Realms…he didn't even know which one.

Tony's head rolled to the side in exhaustion and he wished he could sigh deeply, but he wasn't even able to breathe properly, so that wasn't exactly the best idea. He squinted in pain and when he could focus again, his eyes met a tall, armored figure moving toward him. Out of instinct more than of anything else, he tried to sit once again, but ended up crashing back and coughing up warm blood instead. He gasped for air, which caused even more pain, and suddenly it all appeared so fucking hilarious that his gasps turned into sharp pieces of slightly hysterical laughter.

The figure stepped closer still, and came to a halt above him.

"Remarkable. Even in the face of death, your humor does not fail you, Stark."

Tony looked tiredly into two mocking, green eyes.

"Loki."

The God of Chaos remained silent for a while and Tony had the ridiculous feeling he would have stared him into the ground if he weren't already sprawled out defeated on it. Then, Loki set one knee onto the earth and slowly lowered himself before him, tilting his head to the side in a contemplative, almost soft gesture.

"Are you here to finish what you began? Squash the last of your opponents with your own hands?" Tony spit out with a bitter grin.

Loki's eyes wandered over his crushed Iron Man suit and back to his face, and Tony couldn't read a damn thing on the perfectly blank mask the trickster was wearing. Wordlessly, Loki reached out and ran his thumb over Tony's blood-covered lower lip, bringing it to his own mouth and licking the blood from it with his eyes closed. The engineer clenched his jaw and wished he could move his arm quickly enough to beat the downright reverent expression off the god's face.

"You disappoint me, Stark", Loki finally replied. "Don't you think it would be a much greater pleasure for me to watch you die slowly and painfully from your injuries?"

"I think you wouldn't miss the privilege…to call the end of the Avengers your personal victory" Tony pressed out through his teeth. Damn, the pain was getting worse.

Loki smirked and stroked his head playfully, like a pet's. "Now, now… It is my victory regardless of the specifics. My enemies have fallen, one after another, and those who are left will surrender or fall as well. How do you like this prophecy of mine, Stark?" he ended with a hurtful tug at the engineer's hair.

Tony made a hissing sound and thought he'd slip into blissful unconsciousness for a moment, but unfortunately, the world remained present.

"You're wrong…"

Loki's laughter filled the cold air with needles. "Wrong? In what respect?"

"You're wrong about everything", Tony croaked. "You think you will be happy once you've taken over every realm, once you've made every creature your slave and crushed those who fight you, but you're wrong. There is nothing for you in the end…" He coughed and fought the desire to avert his eyes from the mesmerizing gaze directed at him. "Nothing but emptiness and insanity."

The smile on Loki's face shrank only a little as he sighed and looked at Tony with some kind of unfathomable sadness.

"You are a fool, Stark", he said calmly. "You still believe you can talk me into submission? This is the one thing I never understood about you. Why you kept trying to do that. Here is what you need to understand…" Loki leant down closer to his face and lowered his voice.

"I already am insane. I will always be. And I never aimed for happiness. I aim for strength. And this…"

The god brought the staff he always carried with him to Tony's throat and the engineer could sense its edges vibrating with magic.

"…is why I have to kill you, Stark."

Tony's lips parted in slight surprise as he caught a very brief gleam of something strangely uncharacteristic in Loki's compelling, abysmal eyes. The next thing he felt was a fast, clean cut through the skin on his throat and the warmth of fresh blood spreading over his neck. With a last effort, Tony grabbed Loki's wrist and dug his shaking fingers into it as hard as he could. Loki didn't shake him off, didn't move at all, in fact. He remained perfectly still while his face underwent the most tragic and beautiful transformation Tony had ever seen. All tension left the sharp, ethereal features and revealed an unguarded, resigned expression and an almost imperceptible trace of sorrow.

"Goodbye, Tony."

The first, weak rays of the rising sun flickering vividly in Loki's eyes were the last thing he saw before his body went limp and his vision darkened.

* * *

"Are you done here?"

Loki's silhouette shifted smoothly against the yet faint light of dawn as he rose without turning his eyes from the ground. The other sorcerer's voice cut through the chilled air, sharp like a dagger.

"Yes."

Gaze wandering up from the motionless body at his feet to the brightening horizon, Loki breathed. Slowly and deliberately.

"What were you still doing here after the battle, anyway?"

Loki tilted his head back and closed his eyes for a long moment, before staring at the sky once again, instead of down. A look down would, at this one, dangerous instant, be the first step on the _way_ down, if he didn't watch himself. He turned away, careful to not let his ally catch any glimpse of the little cracks in his mask and began to walk away through the pieces of destruction the battle had left in its wake.

"Getting rid of a nuisance."

After a few seconds, the body he had left behind on the ground went up in strangely silent, green flames that melted red and gold and would bit by bit break the flesh apart into ashes.

Loki's thoughts began to stir again in the momentary numbness of his mind. He was free now. Finally. He had overcome what had been the greatest obstacle of all – he had tricked his own vulnerable and treacherous heart into surrender. Who, if not only a deity of true might was able to do that? He knew that only upon achieving that goal could the path to unlimited power be walked on.

With every step that brought more distance between him and the burning body, Loki felt his last weakness leaving him. Traces of it burned on his cold, pale cheeks, just like the flames devouring the remains of Tony Stark. But infectious wounds healed best when they were burnt out ruthlessly. He would heal, eventually, and become stronger than ever before.

_There is nothing left to stop me now_. _I control my own mind and soul. I got rid of my only weakness. The only thing that had ever posed the risk of affecting my decisions is destroyed by my own hands. It is a new, glorious day's dawn for the Nine Realms. _

_The dawn of my reign._

That morning, the rising sun painted the Midgardian sky a deep, merciless red.

And the cruel, blinding smile of Loki, the new ruler of the universe, brought forth tragedy, devastation and chaos.

* * *

...

Thanks for reading this story.

Reviews are much appreciated, especially as this is my first upload here.


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